


Myosotis

by Havendance



Category: Protean City Comics (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Implications of death, One-Sided Love, Spoilers for Volume 27, not canon compliant with issues 102 and 103
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25953496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Havendance/pseuds/Havendance
Summary: Myosotis, the flower colloquially known as the Forget-Me-Not.Or: John Hobb still loves Alina. It's a shame the universe can't cut him a break.
Relationships: (unrequited), John Hobb | Puck/Alina Mars | Arcana
Kudos: 4





	Myosotis

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to be honest, this was written because I wanted to write something with Hanahaki disease and I was like 'you know what would be *super* angsty?

At first, it’s just a cough. John doesn’t think much of it. He’s been sick before, he’ll get over it. But it doesn’t go away, it gets worse, and worse, and worse. 

Nobody notices. His dad still spends more time at work than home, his mom’s in jail, Ramon doesn’t pay attention to much besides his vendetta, Sage is practically running PCOY, Kalino’s got his own baggage to worry about, Ben hasn’t really talked to him in a while, and Alina… He doesn’t want to think much about Alina. People aren’t constantly forgetting him anymore, but that doesn’t mean that he’s any less alone.

* * *

When John coughs up the first petals, they’re tiny and blue and if they weren’t lying there in his hand he’d think he was imagining the whole thing. It doesn’t feel real. But then he starts coughing again and more petals get hacked up and he’s forced to face the truth. He’s dying. Again.

He thought he was done with dying when he faced his doom. But no, even frozen in a giant pillar of terrifying crystal, the Trickster has still found a way to screw him over.

* * *

He still loves Alina. He loves her so much that it hurts, so much that it apparently took root in him and began to bloom.

John sees her at school but her eyes pass over him without stopping. To her, he’s just another face in the crowd now. Another civilian who doesn’t know anything. He isn’t forgotten anymore, but that doesn’t mean he’s remembered. A few of his teachers try and send him to the nurse’s office as he begins coughing more and more but he never goes. He doesn’t need anyone to tell him what he already knows.

* * *

John knows that if he could just make her remember him, everything would be fine. He knows that’s impossible. Still, when it’s late at night and he can’t sleep, he types out texts on his phone that he never sends and writes out long, messy letters that just collect dust. His desk is a mess, covered in paper and pictures and tiny blue petals he’s too lazy to clean up.

* * *

He dreams about her. About when she still remembered him and it felt like the two of them could take on anything the world threw at them. He dreams about her eyes, how alert they constantly were, and how they would soften when she laughed. About her laugh, rare but warm. About her lips pressed against his own in a triumphant moment where anything seemed possible. 

John wakes up coughing, the life in his dreams glistening in his mind with the unattainability of the past. Stupid Trickster.

* * *

He calls Alina’s number one night when he can’t sleep. It’s late enough that he doesn’t expect her to pick up but it’s still a surprise when the call doesn’t even go through. Instead, there’s a message informing him that the number is no longer in use, the calm, electronic voice detached from the pain it’s causing.

Of course, it’s gone. Of course, she’s changed her phone. Of course, she slips farther and farther away the closer he gets to death.

Johns sends the texts. All of them. He knows that she won’t ever read them. He almost throws away the letters too, but in the end, they get swept into a drawer he never uses, banished from his sight. It’s hopeless, he’s going to die and just after he got his life back, too. Does the universe have it out against him in some way? Is there some reason why he has to die young?

* * *

He’s coughing and coughing and when he finally stops, there’s a single flower lying in his hands amid a smattering of blue petals. It’s crumpled and wilted, tiny and damp in a gross way. John recognizes it as a forget-me-not. He laughs a wry laugh that quickly turns into another coughing fit both because of the irony of it all and because he’s always laughed at death.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my drafts for a while, since just before we saw that John had actually gotten over Alina, in fact. Canon compliancy was never the point of fanfiction though so instead, he gets to suffer.


End file.
